


Faith

by PatchworkSam



Series: Sam Headcanons - BSGC Top 5 Prompt #17 [4]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angels, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Gen, Happy Ending, Headcanon, Prayer, Religious Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-21
Updated: 2015-07-21
Packaged: 2018-04-10 13:43:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 942
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4394150
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PatchworkSam/pseuds/PatchworkSam
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Headcanon: The evolution of Sam's prayer habits</p>
            </blockquote>





	Faith

Sam was five years old. That day in school, one of his teachers had said something about how when loved ones died, they went up in the sky and became angels.

That night at dinner, Sam asked, “Is Mom an angel?”

“What? No,” Dean said, surprised. Then, matter-of-factly, “Dad says there’s no such thing as angels.”

“How does he know?” Sam pressed.

“Because he’s Dad. He just knows things.”

Sam frowned. He wanted to ask _‘what kind of things?’_ but Dean had a _look_ on his face—something stern and Dad-like, that Sam didn’t have a word for. He didn’t ask any more questions.

But that night, snuggled under cheap sheets and listening to Dean softly snoring next to him, he looked up towards heaven, trying to imagine stars instead of the weird bumps on the motel ceiling.

He whispered, very softly, “Mom?” And after a pause, even softer still, “Are you an angel, up there in heaven? Can you see me, and Dean? And Dad?” A small sigh. “Are you far away, like the stars? Dean says stars are really, really far away. But they’re so bright and shiny, I like to look at them anyway. I don’t care if they’re far away. Maybe you like to look at us too…” Sam’s voice trailed off as he drifted into sleep, a peaceful feeling settling over him at the thought of his mom watching over them.

That was the day Sam Winchester first started praying.

When Sam was eight, his brother told him there were in fact such things as monsters. He learned there were many of them, and that they were everywhere. Monsters had killed his mom. And Dad hunted them. Monsters were the reason his family, his life were so different from everyone else’s. He was afraid. But if monsters were real, there was no reason angels couldn’t be real too, no matter what Dean or Dad said. And so Sam prayed; he prayed to his mom, whom he never knew but hoped was watching over him and his dad and brother; he prayed to God, if there was a god; he prayed to anyone or anything that might be listening, in hope that somewhere, someone good and kind would hear him.

As he got older, Sam prayed more often. He still wasn’t sure who exactly he was praying to, but he always held onto his belief that there was _something_. He’d seen a lot of evil, sometimes in the kind of monsters they hunted, sometimes in the kind they didn’t. But he’d seen a lot of good too. Sometimes in the most unlikely people. And that gave him hope; that wherever there is darkness, wherever there is evil, there is also a chance for change. That people are more than what they seem. More than what’s inside of them.

At fourteen, he prayed for his friend. For the girl he had met only briefly, but who had killed her own mother to save him. Who had taught him that “freak” does not have to mean “monster.” The difference lay in the choices people made; and he prayed to God and angels and anything pure and good to help him make the right ones.

At fifteen, he prayed for forgiveness. At the time, the thought that God would forgive him brought him some relief. He had no way of knowing then how many times as he got older he would long for that relief and never feel it.

By the time Sam was twenty-three, he’d been praying every day. The day his hopes were shattered by a spirit disguised as an angel, his prayer was a desperate one. He questioned, he begged, he clung to his faith even as it wavered like the dim flames of the candles in the church crypt. He would not give up hope.

Two years later, Sam felt the weight of the whole upside down world on his twenty-five-year-old shoulders. His soul felt heavy with guilt, but he wasn’t even sure what was right or wrong anymore. Every day he did whatever he could to try and turn a curse into a blessing, and every day he prayed, prayed that he wasn’t deluding himself into damnation, prayed for mercy, prayed that he might still be saved.

And then he met the angels, the messengers of God, the righteous and merciful beings in whom he had placed all his hope for salvation. Only they weren’t righteous, and they weren’t merciful, and they took his faith and spat on it. He was a monster to them. The boy with the demon blood, nothing more.

That was the day Sam Winchester stopped praying.

*          *          *

It took years before Sam began praying again. His prayers to Castiel while soulless went unheard, or at least unanswered. He supposed he should’ve expected that. Their relationship was rocky at best, and what angel would listen to a man without a soul?

And yet, even when he had lost all faith in God and most of the angels, Sam still had some faith in Castiel. He was his friend, after all, and he would not give up on him, no matter what he did. And in the end, it was Sam’s heartfelt prayer that brought the wayward angel back to their little family. It was Sam’s faith, Sam’s forgiveness, Sam’s determination to extend grace even to the one who hurt him, that saved an angel of the Lord.

Since that day, Sam started praying more often. Not to God, not to angels in general, but only to Castiel. In the end, they saved each other. Sam’s faith had not been in vain after all.


End file.
